The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • Softly, Operation Burst

    SIR: When the above mentioned anti crime squad was established by Oyo State government few years ago, many rejoiced that end has come to the criminals in Oyo State. In fairness to the squad, it has lived up to expectation thus far, at least in Ibadan where its operation began. One thinks that it was as a result of its success in Ibadan that the state government extended its operation to other zones in the state.

    However, the function of operation burst in Ogbomoso Township needs to be defined. From the feelers from some town’s people and some victims, the outfit has turned itself to a tin god, dabbling into land matter, forestry matter, this is because they used to chase timber lorries. It has equally assumed the function of traffic warden and use to operate at strategic junction, extorting money through subterfuge. They even went to the extent of visiting hotels and beer joints to arrest people in a bid to extort money. Equally, they used to accost girls for indecent dressing, punishing them by ordering Okada rider to play with the victim’s breast. In short, they are becoming a terror in the land.

    Soon, if care is not taken, they would take over the function of the judiciary. Why this piece is written is that Ogbomoso people are the most accommodating, hospitable, respecters of law but they are haters of oppression and cheating. History is full of instances of their revolt against injustice and oppression in the pre and post colonial periods. This is well documented.

    Oyo State government should call the squad to order to ward off people’s revolt against it. Ogbomoso is entirely crime free as the regular police in the town is capable of providing security in the town.

    • Jimoh Abiodun

    Ogbomoso

     

  • The Mbu that Nigerians do not know

    The world over, they are regarded as special species of Homo sapiens and sequel to their sophisticated training, they most times are a step ahead of their peers. In Nigeria, however, many security personnel especially those recruited and enlisted into the Nigeria Police have lost every iota of credibility to the extent that it is an uphill task to build up the personnel to what it used to be in pre-independent era. In those days, security was an exclusive terrain where personnel were hardly seen and if they were to be sighted, it was usually during operations or at police stations. It was very difficult to find a police officer in places where there were no security operations.

    However as society develops, so also do people advance in knowledge and sophistication. Many have dabbled into security matters with mere primordial understanding of the entailments of security. In all of these, Nigerian politicians unlike their counterparts in other shores have positioned themselves as meddlesome interlopers. They present themselves as leaders and also believe that every institution in their state is intricately intertwined with their portfolio. No wonder they see nothing wrong in the steps they take on issues that have nothing to do with politics.

    The case of Commissioner of Police Mbu Joseph Mbu needs mentioning. Except the uninformed is served with his achievements, many may not know and appreciate who this officer that Nigerians want to sacrifice on the altar of politics. Politicians care less about the achievements of officers in the police, there are officers and there are officers. For instance, Mbu, as far as I know, is among the grade ‘A’ officers of the Nigeria Police Force. Here is an officer that graduated from the University of Lagos where he made Second Class Upper in Political Science, and got enlisted as a cadet officer in 1985. Besides, he has worked in virtually every part of the country. His first major posting was as the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Ukwa-East and Isiala-Ngwa Local government Area of Abia State. His insistence on discipline made the commissioner to upgrade him as the State Command’s Provost and later as the Head of Management in the Abia State Command.

    It is on record that Mbu is one of the few officers in the police with zero-tolerance for corruption and indiscipline. When he was the Federal Highway Commander in-charge of Bauchi, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states, motorists were daily applauding  every of his leadership qualities. His performance in those states brought him to limelight, culminating in his being made chairman of the Federal Task Force on petroleum in Niger State. He was also appointed Area Commander in Minna where he received an award as the best area commander in Niger State. When robbery was getting out of hand in Delta State, it was Mbu that was picked and posted to Ugheli, and again he was decorated as the best Area Commander in Delta State. His rise, which is in tandem with handwork, resulted in his posting as Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Administration in Anambra State command. He became a ready tool for positive change in the police when the police colleges in the country were decapitating and contractors were having a field day and swimming in corrupt and sharp practices. Mbu was posted to rescue the sinking police schools and secondary schools. Before he was posted out of the education unit, he had successfully restored the dignity and falling standard of all the 55 primary schools and seven police secondary schools in the country. It was during his brief tenure that police officers’ confidence was restored to send their children to police schools and secondary schools. It was, therefore, not surprising when he was moved and made chairman of the monitoring and implementation committee of Police Housing Projects when it was discovered that contractors were conniving to deliver low quality jobs to the detriment of the Force.

    Like him or hate him, Mbu is an officer of repute. He may not have tread softly the “political soil” where Governor Amaechi holds sway, but Mbu should not seen as one picked from Mars to be in charge of the Rivers State Police command. The Inspector General of Police, who approved his posting, understood the terrain and geo-political atmosphere before posting him there, so why the hullabaloo? Some Nigerian politicians are short-tempered and think every Federal Government personnel serving in their state automatically falls under  their jurisdiction and therefore should be subject to their influence and power. A case on record was that of Assistant Inspector General of Police Donald Iroham who as police commissioner was having a running security misunderstanding with former Governor Ohakim of Imo State who turned it into a political issue and demanded the transfer of the commissioner. After a prolonged intervention by the IGP, Iroham was posted out of Imo State to Lagos. He later ended up in Kwara as that state’s police commissioner.  Mbu’s posting to Rivers State is like a man thrown into a surging tide and left to swim against the tide. Such venture requires gut, stamina, relentlessness and perseverance. All these attributes are the gains of every policeman who has undergone the mobile police force training. It is appropriate to mention that the same Mbu before his appointment to Rivers State was the CP in charge of the Police Mobile Force when ethics and discipline was at its lowest ebb. Again Mbu was redeployed to Oyo State where he tamed the ever aggressive motor union activists.

    No one is covering any of his perceived excesses and utterances but the truth is that the wading into the alleged crisis by the Inspector General of Police, who dispatched a Deputy Inspector General of Police to investigate and write his report, is a welcome development. In my opinion, Mbu as a political scientist and a trained police officer concerned with the security of the state understands the challenges. Perhaps more than anyone, he appreciates that there should be a synergy between top security personnel and political leaders, for good governance can only be guaranteed in an atmosphere of peace.

     

    •Okezie is an Abuja-based security analyst.

     

  • Hon. Manwe’s Freudian slip

    Let it be known that the jumbo pay controversy dogging the National Assembly, NASS, will not be shaken off until the offensive heap of cash members haul home has been reduced to reasonable limits; this is the magisterial postulation of Hardball on this matter of urgent, grievous, national concern. Recall that this matter which has been eating up Nigerians (both literally and metaphorically) was elevated to an international pedestal recently when The Economist of London published a poll of the take-homes of lawmakers across the world. Our NASS members of course won the world cup in this regard beating stupid, their counterparts from countries like USA, Germany, Britain, Japan, Singapore, you name it.

    Since this publication hit us mid July, Nigerians have continued to yelp like wounded dogs while the NASS overlords have responded mutedly and gone back to the drawing board to restrategise and plot new ways to fend off the ‘bowling barbarians’. And the results are trickling in: the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, has been inveigled into the plot; the Commission came out recently with an elaborate explanation to prove to us that our lawmakers are not treasury raiders as we purport. RMAFC claims that our people in the legislative chambers actually earn a little over N12million per annum as basic pay and not nearly N30 million (basic) as claimed by The Economist.

    But when RMAFC tallied up all the imponderable bonuses and allowances, the pay turned out to be truly frightening and out of this world. We also did not fail to notice what seems like a caveat in the RMAFC rebuttal. It says: “that the remuneration package contained in the Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders Salaries and Allowances etc, (Amendment) Act of 2008 states the actual amount being paid to legislators and other public officers, adding, however that any other allowance(s) enjoyed by any political office holder outside those provided in the Remuneration Act of 2008 is not known to the Commission and the Chief Accounting Officer should be held accountable.”

    This suggests that there is actually a chance that certain allowances outside the purview of RMAFC may well be enjoyed by the NASS and perhaps other political office holders. And they know it, we know it, everybody knows that there is much more to this matter than they let us see. Early this year, the boss of RMAFC had bemoaned the stack hauled home by legislators and warned that it was inimical to the economy and not in the least sustainable. A few years back, the Central Bank governor had also lamented the fact that a huge chunk of the country’s earnings is carted away by the NASS.

    In all of this, however, one member of the House of Representative, Mr. Jerry Manwe, who is chairman of the House committee on Electoral Matters, showed the stuff he is made of when in an attempt to weigh in on the matter recently let off a fat Freudian slip. Manwe blamed the jumbo pay of NASS members on, “people’s orientation and Nigeria’s style of politics”. At least he is honest enough to admit there is a jumbo pay. Let’s hear his justification: “Our politics here is different. Go and check all those countries you compared us with; how much do they spend to contest election there?

    “A situation whereby a member will spend an average of N150 million on an election is not healthy…nobody spends less than N100 million to run for an election here.”

    Phew, if only our dear Honorable Manwe can decode what he has said, but in this slip lay the answer to the riddle of Nigerian lawmakers’ world-beating pay. It must be so very convenient if not wonderful that “Nigeria’s style of politics” is made topsy-turvy so that some people can reap from the unending crisis. Some people actually spend a life time leveraging on crises. But let it be known to Manwe and all his colleagues that their primary assignment is to change this ugly style of politics that enriches them and deprives the larger populace. Yes there is something they can do.

  • Akpabio, victim of editorial diatribe?

    SIR: The Nation on August 8, dedicated its editorial column to fire unsavory salvos at Governor Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State. In the piece entitled Tin god, it criticized Akpabio for relieving Secretary to the State Government (SSG) of Akwa Ibom State of duty. According to the editorial, the raison d’être for the action was the declaration of the erstwhile SSG to vie for the office of governor of the state.  In its uninformed comment, it stated that Governor Akpabio was infuriated by that declaration hence the decision to show him the way out. But the aspiration of the former SSG was not new to anybody in the state including the governor who had also mentioned that aspiration liberally at different fora.

    Editorials represent the policy of the paper. Editorials deal with topical issues and canvass opinions on how public policies could be shaped. The language is often temperate and impersonal. It labours to rise above subjectivity, frivolity, animosity and personal feelings. The column is often known for exercising professional and civilized values being the window to that paper or magazine.

    The editorial under reference failed unabashedly short of all the isolated criteria. It is hard to conjecture how egg-heads sat in an editorial board meeting to decide that the editorial policy of the paper for the day should be hatred directed at Governor Akpabio. That is if the ritual of editorial meeting was observed. Or was it an individual who decided to exercise his/her warped fancy that did the editorial without consulting other members of the editorial board?

    The editorial employed clearly indecorous language. It made no pretence about its intention to disparage Governor Akpabio. It set for itself the disingenuous task of undertaking and completing investigation on the ousting of the erstwhile SSG, condemned the style and handed down a verdict of ignominy to the man it claimed called the shots for that ouster. It described the governor with all manners of sordid epithets depicting him as a tyrant which does not reflect Governor Akpabio that many know. By this editorial, The Nation has failed in holding out the proverbial mirror for the true reflection of man and society as expected of a dignified medium and journalism profession. It use of far-fetched examples to advance the cause of its defective submission about Akpabio only shows how hate can becloud reasoning.

    While one appreciates the dilemma of the medium being a mouthpiece of the opposition, it must not sacrifice professionalism to satisfy the fancies of its paymaster. It should at least pretend to be on the side of principle by not allowing politics to interfere and prejudice journalism career and dispose it as a tool in the hands of politicians. The sustained efforts by The Nation to see everything wrong in Akwa Ibom seems to be part of a calculated political agenda to discredit the state which has ascended enviable height these past six years to turn the once defeaning success story of ACN controlled Lagos State into a boring tale of drudgery. And as part of it, the star light of Akwa Ibom which is Akpabio must be dimmed with bad press. This in my estimation is unfortunate and a sad commentary on journalism practice.

    Recently, Punch carried a news item which it purported was a result of a press statement issued by a groups called Northern Emancipation Network. The group is reported to have advised President Jonathan to be wary of Akpabio. Curiously, it was only Punch that was at that press briefing out of plenteous newspapers in this country. And the purpose of that mischievous news report is stripped bare when papers further editorialise fiction in the name of reportage. Journalists must find the nobility to commend people that are doing well in other to encourage them as well as others to tow the path of progressive and accountable governance. It must also criticize when need arises to keep leadership in check. This is the only way journalism would be seen as partners in the all important task of nation-building.

    A newspaper of the standing of The Nation should not be seen to be parochial or holding jaundiced views against a person or section of the country. It should be seen as a true national paper. This is the only way it can continue to cultivate followership that would nurse this enfeebled adult nation state to a strong and virile one.

    • Joseph Ndedu

    Lagos

  • Plight of victims of 2011 post-election violence

    SIR: I am a victim of the post election violence that took place in Kano in 2011.

    I will like to call the attention of the federal government to the need to come to the aid of the victims many of whom lost virtually everything that they had laboured for over the years of hard labour.

    Shortly after the crisis, the federal government sent the director general NEMA, Alhaji  Mohammed Sani Nasidi to Kano, to us at the refugee camp at the Police Headquarters, Bompai Kano, assuring us that the federal government promised to compensate us accordingly. Since then, we have heard nothing from them. Even the governor,  Dr  Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, visited us in the same camp  promising  that on assumption of office, he will ensure that we are duly compensated. Since coming into office, we have tried everything possible to reach him but to no avail. Months later, we were invited to Sani Abacha Stadium in Kano by the Lemu panel sent by the federal government. They took our documents, passport photographs and phone numbers, and yet we have had no response.

    Later NEMA, through the Kano Relief Agency again invited us demanding similar documents to the ones submitted earlier, which we submitted again, yet no response from them and all efforts to contact the committee have proved abortive. Most painful of it all, is that most of the victims are not even enlightened on where to submit their documents due to the manner in which the collection of the documents were conducted.

    It’s been almost three years now and we just learnt that President Goodluck Jonathan  approved the compensation subsequent to which the Vice President Arch. Namadi Sambo later disbursed the funds to the various states. It’s been five months since the approval and disbursements and still we don’t know when and where to be compensated. We tried contacting the Kano Relief Agency again and we were told that they are not responsible for the payments and they don’t know when we will be called upon.

    All we are soliciting the federal government is to please call on all the stakeholders and committees in charge of the disbursements, to please remember that we are living in abject poverty and pains. We want them to remember we have children to cater for and a lot of other responsibilities; most of us are jobless and homeless and our children out of school, we are almost living as beggars in the communities we live in.

    We were attacked, robbed and killed by the enemies of the government which we can call an artificial or a manmade disaster which would have been treated as a critical condition but we have been abandoned. In 2011 and 2012, flood victims were given immediate attention; why is our situation not treated with equal attention to that of the flood victims?

    We urge the President to please come to our rescue; we are dying of starvation and life has been miserable for most of us because we lost everything to that violence that took away so many lives and our hard-earned properties.

    • Raphael I. Ogenyi

    Kano.

  • Ikoku, Fafunwa, Bajah and the pedagogy of human capital development

    In development theory, it has become axiomatic that the most definitive underlying core of any abiding development for any nation is the critical mass of people who have been capacitated to rethink and rehabilitate the nation’s national direction. Human capital development therefore becomes the first law in any blueprint for sustainable development. In other words, if development is about the people, then worthy development is all about the education of those who will diligently drive the spirit of the nation towards the desired direction. The educational system of any nation becomes the crucial framework through which this critical mass of people percolates for developmental appropriation. If, for Henry James, “a teacher affects eternity,” then those who are taught properly affect the direction and configuration of the national project of any state. And both the teachers and the students become the foundation on which a good state is erected. These truths are not just theoretical; they have been impressed on my mind repeatedly through my many contacts with the educational policies in Nigeria.

    The sturdiness of today’s global economies has been attributed to the supremacy of human capital as catalyst for global progress. The implication of this is that such first-world countries as the US and Germany have achieved greatness, while many more others like China and Brazil are coming very closely behind them because of their huge investments in the utmost maximization of human resources. In today’s world, with its knowledge-driven and Internet-inspired proliferation of information, these leading countries have discovered that while a massive human population, worthwhile investments in nuclear and military might, and virile socio-political and economic institutions confer comparative advantages, they cannot be compared to the dire expediency of a knowledge industry that vigorously drives the shuttle of governments’ development initiatives and their utopian quest to deliver the democratic goods to their citizens. This is why these nations have appropriately positioned their educational sectors as the inspiration of great strides in scientific and technological novelties. If Nigeria too, with its rich natural resource base and human capital, will join the league of these successful and industrialized countries, and achieve its dreams of prominence and growth, then it is high time we returned to those pragmatic models and visionary agendas of education, which place concrete human capital development at the heart of nations’ economic progress. And here, we come face to face with the iconic figures who have struggled and pioneered educational ideas of global reckoning. The tragedy would seem to be that we have one way or the other not adequately countenanced the worth of those ideas. For Alvan Azinwa Ikoku, Babatunde Fafunwa and Samuel Tunde Bajah, (deciding on these three educationists and excluding, for now, many others like Ayodele Yoloye et al is a painful decision I had to take due to space constraints among other considerations), the decision to labour in the educational trenches of the Nigerian state was not one they were forced to take by “the very urgent need to eat”, according to Edward Braithwaite, the Guyanese educator. Rather, their decision arose out of a sense of vocation that deposits insights into the banks of innovative and pragmatic education.

    Dr. Alvan Ikoku—politician, teacher and administrator—was an outstanding educationist who obtained the University of London degree in Philosophy in 1928, and went on to establish one of the earliest private secondary schools in Nigeria, the Aggrey Memorial College in 1931 as part of efforts to bring the benefits of formal education to many others in colonial Nigeria. As a former Minister of Education, Ikoku worked for the introduction of uniform education in Nigeria through the Nigerian Union of Teachers, whose interests and activities he served relentlessly as national president. Ikoku’s vision of education, together with Professor Babatunde Fafunwa, validated the idea that pragmatic education wrapped in indigenous epistemological framework ought to be one of the core objectives of Nigeria’s educational institutions. Professor Fafunwa is not only an unrepentant advocate of indigenous free education; he dedicated his life to the advocacy of a Mother Tongue (MT) education. Apart from his roles, as Minister for Education, in the establishment of several educational institutes—the National Board for Education Measurement (NBEM, later National Examinations Council), the Nigerian French Village in Badagry, the Arabic village in Borno State, the Nigerian Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), and the National Institute for Nigerian Languages in Abia State; Prof. Fafunwa’s legacy is attached to the Ife Primary Education Research Project which established the relationship between indigenous education, mother tongue teaching and national development.

    While Ikoku and Fafunwa labored around the form of educational practice, Bajah’s contributions resonate around the specific scientific and technological content of that educational project. There is no doubt that worldly progress is part of the overall objectives of a state’s national project; and scientific education is the number one global machinery for achieving it. Many would remember Bajah as a science educator who simplified science-based topics for young people in Nigeria. Chemistry for Secondary Schools, which he co-authored with Arthur Godman, has been translated into six languages, including French and Spanish. Another important publication is his Primary Science for Nigerian Schools. Bajah’s popular interpretation of the sciences becomes significant for many reasons. First, it serves a critical pedagogical strategy to raise the awareness of science and mathematics which are not popular for Nigerian students. Second, it places the significance of science education within our collective consciousness as a nation that is about to take her place in global development order. Third, Bajah’s simplified science books open Nigeria’s young minds to the possibilities that science and mathematics promise. With Bajah, we stand the chance of a “technological transfer” into the deepest framework of the Nigerian national project.

    With Fafunwa, Ikoku and Bajah, we confront the exigency of a viable educational alternative that could serve as a fulcrum upon which Nigeria can begin to rethink her human capital development. For these educational icons, the starting point is an indigenous educational planning programme which plucks an educational direction to development through servicing relevant national goals. If the goal of education is to produce diligent citizens with admirable character traits conducive to leading others, then it becomes imperative that such an educational objective can only flourish within an endogenous context which Nigeria’s cultural diversity provides. This implies that our pedagogical framework must begin to reflect indigenous thinking and paradigms. These paradigms are here with us, and it is the achievements of these educational planners and administrators that they got to them first. Their seminal ideas and noble efforts compel us to believe that Nigeria’s vision of sustainable growth and development is a possibility that must be anchored on the citadel of concrete investments in human capital development.

    The first condition for the possibility of the national project in Nigeria, therefore, must necessarily be at the human capital development level where we can achieve the education of citizens who only see their ethnic, religious and cultural attachments as springboards for participating in the creation of a Nigeria national identity which is motivated not by what can be gained from Nigeria, but what we can all contribute to increase her worth and our own betterment. Madame de Stael, the French writer, remarked that “a nation has character only when it is free.” For us, Nigeria achieves her own national character only when it is educated.

     

    • Dr. Olaopa is Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Youth Development, Abuja.

  • Fashola and the hypocrisy of Ndigbo

    The Abia State government last year came up with an ingenious policy. All non-indigenous employees in the state public service, including teachers, were to be relieved of their duties because the government’s resources were meant for the indigenes.

    Over 80% of the people affected are from Imo, Ebonyi, Anambra and Enugu states.

    Most leaders maintained a conspiracy of silence on this policy which for long will remain one of the greatest impediments to Igbo unity.

    Abia was actually treading the path of the Enugu State government which had in the late 1990s decided to sack all non-indigenes in the state’s public service in order to “save resources”. Almost every casualty is Igbo.

    But a number of Igbo social activists have now suddenly found their voice.

    The overnight activists have created an unmistakable mass hysteria in both the social media and the traditional media over the bogey that Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has been “deporting” Igbo people from the state.

    Some politicians who are determined to make political capital out of the so-called repatriations have been busy simulating the hysteria. But perhaps, unbeknownst to these people, they are hurting in a most profound manner, strategic Igbo interests.

    No people can survive—let alone—progress on a diet of lies and emotions, or by allowing politicians to create and sustain a culture of paranoia or siege mentality, otherwise called persecution complex.

    The Lagos State government launched a few years ago, an ambitious project to turn Lagos, Nigeria’s economic nerve centre with a population of some 16 million, into a true mega-city. This entailed, among other things, the enthronement of a new social order and a different aesthetic regime.

    Consequently, the state began to clear thousands of homeless people, beggars and urchins from the streets.

    Thus, a large number of “area boys” who are mostly Lagos Island indigenes, like the governor, are to this day still arrested and hounded into “Black Maria” trucks by Kick Against Indiscipline (KIA) officials. Borrowing a leaf from such places as New York and Hawaii, Lagos initiated a programme of returning many destitute individuals to their home states. Over 3,000 of such people have been relocated back to northern states where they have now been reintegrated with their families. When about 80 were sent to Oyo State in November, 2009, the governor screamed to the high heavens that “they were dumped on Molete “Bridge” in Ibadan.

    About 14 destitute people from Anambra State were sent to Onitsha last week because of the failure of the state’s Ministry of Social Welfare to arrange for the arrival of these people , unlike those of Akwa Ibom and Katsina states which made proper logistic arrangements for their own people. A section of the media has since gone to town with the extremely dangerous propaganda that the Lagos State governor is driving Igbo people out of Lagos through “brazen deportations and repatriations”.

    Even professionals and scholars expected to be more thoughtful and strategic in their actions have capitulated so easily to the mind poisoning reports and have been responding exuberantly.

    A man who introduced himself as a professor from Nnewi called me on the phone on Thursday morning to assert with so much authority that “only Anambra indigenes are being targeted for expulsion from Lagos because all Nigerians know that Anambra is the leader of the Igbo nation”.

    A lawyer in Maryland, United States, wrote that Fashola dare not relocate beggars of northern extraction, alleging that the Igbo are the whipping boy of Nigerian politics.

    He is blissfully ignorant of the thousands of northern beggars taken away from Borno Street in Ebute Metta and environs.

    How did the industrious, highly republican and intelligent Igbo people embrace, all of a sudden, this level of groupthink that has made us look like a people with unimaginable amnesia?

    In June, a very big plaza in Olodi, Apapa, belonging to Igbo entrepreneurs and housing hundreds of Igbo traders was burnt at night. The next day Fashola was at the site and promised to rebuild it at the Lagos State expense. No Igbo governor has visited the place up to this moment, and none has promised to assist the victims. Last December, Ngozi Nwosu, an actress, was reported to be down with a serious liver ailment, so an appeal fund was launched. No South-east government, including her home state of Imo State, responded, just as no wealthy Igbo men and women did.

    Only N1.5million out of 6m needed for treatment in the United kingdom, could be raised. Fashola provided the remaining N4.5m. And now some so-called Igbo activists are accusing him of anti-Igbo sentiments.

    Two months ago, Fashola completed the biggest housing estate he has built and named it after Emeka Anyaoku, an erstwhile Commonwealth secretary general from Anambra State. At a time some Igbo people cannot be hired as teachers or civil servants in south-eastern states other those of those of their origin, Fashola recruits them in large numbers, with some becoming judges and magistrates. His Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Ben Akabueze, is from the Southeast. The chief executive of the state Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency, Joe Igbokwe, is an engineer and publisher from Nnewi. Mac Duruigbo, from Imo State, is Fashola’s Personal Assistant on the Media.

    Fashola gave Ikemba Nnewi practically a state burial last year in Lagos, the only non-South-east governor to accord the famous Biafran leader this high honour.

    He was the only governor who attended last March the Chinua Achebe colloquium at Brown University in Rhode Island, United States, where he praised Achebe for his monumental achievements at a time the great writer was the butt of criticism by the Yoruba political establishment following Achebe’s unflattering remarks about Obafemi Awolowo in his new book, There Was A Country, a personal account of the Nigerian civil war. So, how did some of us come about the brainwave that the dynamic and cosmopolitan Lagos State governor is anti-Igbo? Simply because his government relocated some Igbo elements to their home state, some of whom came to Lagos to do business but instead took to hard drug consumption and became urchin, better known as “area boys”! Interestingly when Fashola began to crack down on “area boys”, most of whom are from his state, Igbo traders were over the moon, rejoicing that the governor had saved them from the miscreants of “area boys” who had for decades been tormenting the traders daily, extorting huge sums from them and viciously assailing those who refused with dangerous weapons.

    There are more Igbo people in Lagos than any other state.

    There are so many investments in Lagos because Lagos has for long welcomed the Igbo people, enabling Ndigbo to prosper in Lagos more than any other state. And no governor in Nigeria’s history has demonstrated as much affection to our people as Fashola.

    Commonsense dictates we protect in a strategic manner the interests of our people and reciprocate the friendship of well meaning individuals and groups. It will be a colossal tragedy if we savour the dishes of salacious lies and terrible propaganda which we are being served by opportunistic politicians and garnished by hysterical Igbo social activists. We must be guided at all times by truth and reason.

    • Adinuba is Head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting.

  • Osun leads in Nigeria’s school enrolment

    Osun leads in Nigeria’s school enrolment

    If there is any sector Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has made salient and loudest impact since his assumption of office, it is in the area of basic education. This, however is not to deduct from the other laudable transformational projects and programmes going on across the length and breadth of the State of Osun. However, his education policy is by far more rewarding and enduring. It’s obvious that the governor’s primary role in governance is to address the debilitating problem of education which is central to the fight against extreme poverty.

    The reason be that all other things, as it were, may perish or decay, depending on who Governor Aregbesola took over the mantle of leadership from or who takes over from him after he must have climbed down from the saddle. The same cannot be said of the knowledge acquired which inculcates values, attitudes, competence and skills that are capable of transforming individuals and turning them to self-regenerative, recreative and rebounding agents of change.

    A case in point is the virtual aptness of a junior school student, Miss Yetunde Ojo, who came third in dancing competition held at Osogbo Grammar School, Osogbo during the Tree Planting Programme which attracted students from schools in Osun-Central Senatorial District. Miss Yetunde who was asked to name her three trees in order to nurture them with tenderness to maturity gave their names as follows: (1) Yetunde (2) Ojo and Top-casts. To the astonishment of the mammoth crowd she told the audience that Top-casts is the name of her future company, when the moderator demanded to know who is Top-casts! That is the imponderability and imperishability of education.

    So, one is not surprised to know that the State of Osun is taking the lead in the number of students, enrolment in Nigeria, including female student, across the country. A report by the National Bureau of Statistics in Wikipedia puts Osun children’s in primary school enrolment between 70 and 80 percent. The report by Wikipedia was posted on July 8, 2013. According to the report, no other state in the country falls within Osun’s category while Ekiti, Delta, Cross River, Enugu states rank between 60 and 70 per cent. Ondo, Lagos, Rivers, Bayelsa, Abia rank between 50 and 60 per cent, while Kebbi and Yobe states were on the lower rung of the ladder, with 10 per cent enrolment.

    Commenting on the enrolment feat in a parley with some journalists, Governor Rauf Aregbesola attributed the grand-breaking achievement to God and commitment. He said: “We thank God that our efforts are being recognised and appreciated. The Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics has published in its July, 2013 edition that Osun tops in primary school enrolment across the country.”

    The governor is of the view that the role of education in poverty eradication, in close co-operation with other social sectors, is crucial. He said no country has succeeded if it has not educated its people. He posited that not only is education important in reducing poverty, it is also a key to wealth creation. The governor submitted that the only way for Nigeria to realise her full potential is “to promote EFA policies within a sustainable and well-integrated sector framework clearly linked to poverty elimination and development strategies.”

    The success story is largely attributed to the Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme (a.k.a O’MEALS), the brain child programme of the governor. The governor elected on the well thought out programme so as to reverse the very low academic performance of pupils in both internal and externals, and the realization that good nutrition is necessary for proper cognitive development of pupils. The school feeding of the O’MEALS programme which commenced on Monday, 30th April 2012 has increased the number of school pupils in public primary schools astronomically. So far, O’MEALS School Feeding Programme is being implemented in a total of 1,375 Primary Schools across the State of Osun.

    The daily feeding allowance for each pupil has been increased to an amount of N 50. 00, totalling N 250. 00 (equivalent to $ 1. 56) per school week. For effective service, a total number of 3,007 food vendors/cooks were trained and are currently employed to serve midday meals for pupils of classes 1, 2, 3 and 4 in all primary schools in the State of Osun. All food items being utilised for feeding pupils are available locally and this is to boost the income of local farmers and others on the supply chain. Nutrition experts developed a menu-table of foods to be served to school pupils.

    The cheery news is coming at a time most Africa’s education systems are failing to meet the brave targets of Millennium Development Goals projected towards Education For All (EFA) in 2015. President Goodluck Jonathan attested to this fact a few weeks ago that Nigeria cannot meet the MDGs target of (EFA) by 2015. Though the President acknowledged the fact that Nigeria cannot meet the target, he came short of telling Nigerians what efforts his administration is making or planning to make to boost enrolment in both public and private primary schools.

    Before now, Osun has witnessed low enrolment turn out in primary schools until the debut of Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme of the current administration. The programme, no doubt, spurs a great deal of parents and pupils into enrolling in public school in large numbers and this explains why the state towers above other states across the country. Fortunately, the pace-setter State of Osun with a middle income status is reaching the world’s full school attendance benchmark, thanks to a ruthless focus on primary school enrolment policy of the governor.

    The development goals, which Nigeria and other poverty-stricken countries will fail to meet in two years, are in the areas of basic education, childcare, maternal health, hunger, gender equality, environment etc. With at least 10 million children out of school in 2013, Nigeria is far from meeting the goal of universal primary education. Education For All (EFA) in 2015 is clearly not one of the issues on the national agenda. The statistics on infant and maternal mortality remain as grim as ever. Extreme poverty is globally defined as living below $1.25 dollars a day; millions of Nigerians still fall below this baseline.

    It is useful to think about what 2015 means to power-seekers in Nigeria and the significance of the year to the global movement against excruciating poverty. The lesson of the failure in meeting the 2015 MDGs is that the aim of policy should henceforth be education and poverty eradication. At a time when the global attention is on education and poverty reduction is most appropriate for such a debate. The debate is important and urgent. Any administration that fails to acknowledge the failure of our educational system, the unacceptable degree of human misery there on the streets is not only unfair to the people, it is also a disservice to that administration.

    Nigeria governments at all level should think big in matters of making poverty history in the land. But relative to the resources available and the growing potentials, there is a lot more that can be done about stamping out poverty through training and retraining in Nigeria. For the avoidance of doubt, there is nothing utopian about this proposition. China is reputed to have moved 680 million people out of poverty in two decades. That is more than four times the population of Nigeria. Brazil under President Lula achieved significant poverty reduction through education with other aggressive people-centred policies to a global acclaim. India has recorded a success story of moving millions out of poverty.

    The progress Governor Aregbesola is making in the area of education should serve as a clarion call to the federal government and other state governors to have a second look at their education policy. The unprecedented impact his education policy thrust has made in less than three years in office is a pointer to the fact that it is not too late to engage in programmes that bring happiness to the greater number of the populace.

     

    Eyinola, a social commentator writes from Osogbo.

  • Paedophiles in power

    Paedophiles in power

    Perhaps they could also learn one or two things from the following  press report in a newspaper just last week which reflects the views of one of the most respected leaders and islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia. The report reads as follows-

    ‘’A member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body has said that Prophet Mohammed’s marriage to a nine-year-old girl does not justify marrying minor children today because circumstances have changed in the intervening 14 centuries. The comments by Sheikh Abdullah al Manie, who sits on the Council of Senior Ulema, follow other recent public criticisms of child marriage, suggesting the government may be preparing public opinion for legislation setting a minimum marriage age.

    “They want to prepare the public to understand that the old days are not like today,” said Mekhlef al Shammary, a human rights advocate in Dammam. “It’s a crime to give a 12-year-old to be a mother and wife. “This is ridiculous. Even in Islam it’s not acceptable because the girl is not mature enough. She’s a child – she’s not ready for sexual relations.” The marriage of young girls, often to much older men, has been at the forefront of public debate in Saudi Arabia for a couple of years. It escalated early last year after it was reported that a man had contracted to give his eight-year-old daughter in marriage to a 47-year-old man in order to pay a financial debt. The contract was annulled after a public outcry.

    Sheikh al Manie is believed to be the most senior cleric to unequivocally denounce the practice of child marriage. Prophet Mohammed’s marriage to young Aisha “cannot be equated with child marriages today because the conditions and circumstances are not the same”, he said in remarks published in the Saudi Gazette and Okaz newspapers on Thursday. “It is a grave error to burden a child with responsibilities beyond her years,” the sheikh said. “Marriage should be put off until the wife is of a mentally and physically mature age and can care for both herself and her family.”

    Sheikh al Manie’s comments came a few days after Sheikh Abdul Mohsen al Obaikan urged legislation making marriage illegal for girls under 18.

    Waivers might be given in some cases by judges or the royal court, he added, according to reports in the same newspapers. Sheikh al Obaikan said the marriage of minors was a “grave error” and cautioned parents to “fear Allah and not marry their daughters by force” to men they do not want to wed’’.

    Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima, Professor Ishaq Akintola and all those that continuosly give the impression that child marriage is acceptable in islam and who erroneously believe that the honest criticism of such an abominable practice is an attack on their faith surely have much to learn from the contribution of this erudite Saudi Arabian leader and scholar. As a matter of fact, we all do and it is contributions like that that make the rest of us appreciate what a beautiful religion Islam really is when its tenets are properly understood and applied. Permit me to end this essay by sharing a few poignant words that my dear sister, Mrs. Toyin FaniKayode-Bajela wrote in a moving piece titled ‘’You Who Support Child Marriage’’ from London just last week. She wrote-

    ‘’You who for whatever ‘solid and noble’ reason have chosen to agree with legitimised child slavery, sexual abuse, psychological, emotional, physical and financial abuse under the guise of marriage. You who are silent about it or couldn’t care less as it’s not a topic worthy of inclusion in the constitutional review. All of you have freedom to choose your position on this issue- the freedom to wax lyrical, or not so lyrical, as is most often the case, on this issue. You enjoy the freedom to hold and have your own opinion. The freedom to air your opinion irrespective of whether l care for that opinion or not.

    “A girl child has no choice. A girl child has no opinion that anyone will listen to – a girl child learns quickly the horrific consequences of her unwanted opinion and her only goal is silent survival or only choice suicide. There is no point in appealing to an iota of empathy in you that agree with child marriage for whatever ‘noble’, ‘altruistic’ or patriarchal ‘reason’ as time and time again, on issue after issue, day after day, we are reminded that you have none. Everything is reduced to politics, religion and gain – financially or otherwise. For those of you who think we have spoken-’too much grammar’ on this isssue- you are darn right. I have just enough (grammar ) to speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves or those for whom the consequences of speaking out would be unspeakable, but not too little grammar that l might be tempted to stay silent.’’

    My heart missed a beat and a tear came to my eye when I read this and I commend Toyin for her admonitions to us all and for her touching words. I also commend Roz Ben Okagbue, Hanatu Musawa, Maryam Uwais, Stella Damasus, Aisha Osori, Helen Oviagbele, Oby Ezekwezile, Josephine Anenih, Cheluchi Onyemelukwe, Linda Ikeji, Bisi Fayemi, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Gbemisola Saraki, Nana Nwanchukwu, Modupe Debbie Ariyo and the many other leading women that have stood up and made their voices heard through their articles, actions, concerns and various commentries on the girl-child and child marriage issue in what is essentially a deeply conservative, insensitive, anti-progressive and male-dominated country and society which really does not offer much sympathy or hope to the plight of women generally let alone that of the girl-child and infant bride.

    Let me give a couple of examples of that insensitivity and our misplaced priorities. In Yerima’s own northern region no less than 93 per cent of girls do not complete secondry school education and 70 per cent of women between the ages of 20 and 29 cannot read or write. Worst still the region has the largest per centage and number of recorded vesico vagina fistula (VVF) cases in the entire world.  VVF is a terrible and very painful diesease which causes it’s victims to urinate and defecate uncontrollably and which is caused by child-sex, child marriage and child-pregnancies. According to our Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Zainab Maina, Nigeria has 800,000 cases of VVF today and we are adding 20,000 cases each year. All these cases are situated in the northern part of the country. Such a diseases, such suffering, such illiteracy and such high levels of poverty of the mind and soul should have no place in any part of our great nation in this day and age. Our people, whether they be from the North or the South, Christian or Muslim, young or old and men or women, surely deserve better than that. After all, we are living in the 21st century and not the 6th. Yet sadly these vices are more rampant in Yerima’s own northern region and constituency than anywhere else in the country and instead of attempting to improve on the lot, the education and quality of lives of the good people of the North all he thinks about is marrying little girls and bedding them. What a man and what a country. Outside of this contribution I have nothing more to say on this vexed and contentious issue of the horrendous plight of the girl-child and child marriage in Nigeria.

     

  • The Pope and Desmond Tutu

    A strongly believe there’s a grand conspiracy by the world powers to force-feed the world with the gay bug before the turn of the new decade.

    It’s no mere coincidence that two of the world’s most revered religious leaders, the Pope and Desmond Tutu, made ‘disturbing’ statements in support of ‘Gayness’ in a space of three days. While the Pope’s was veiled, Desmond Tutu’s was brash; the Nobel laureate threatening not to go to heaven if he finds out God is homophobic. Now, if God was in support of homosexuals, why did he destroy Sodom and Gomorrah as written in the Bible? This is in addition to the aggressive pro-gay campaign the leaders of both the United States of America and Britain have embarked on in recent months.

    I see no reason why the people of the world shouldn’t clamour for the legalisation of present day sexual vices such as incest, child marriage, bestiality etc. After all, homosexuality was once seen as a crime by the same people at the forefront of the campaign for its acceptance.

    What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. Gay rights activists should henceforth include the aforementioned ‘sex crimes’ in their checklist of rights to be fought for.

    I still insist that homosexuality is an abnormality that can be corrected, either medically, through psychological therapy or through exorcism. It’s important to note that I don’t and can never hate gays; it’s only the act I detest.

    I pray God heals the world.

     

    Simon Utsu

    08094982226